"What I cannot find is what I am looking for. Aan kay yaft na meshavad, anum arzoo ast.”
Rumi began the search. Centuries later, Iqbal joined him.
Can someone please help me find what Rumi and Iqbal were looking for?
The first step would be to identify what we want. Then, to determine how to get it. Then, to decide if the find was worth the search.
And if what we found is so precious why should it care if we find it or not, why?
Ghalib, while searching for this, made an interesting discovery and had to cry out:
Vaez hadis-e-sayya-e-Tooba faro guzaar
[Pontificator, leave aside the talk of paradise and its comforts.]
Khayyam looked for it in the street of the potters and declared: The clay, the pot, the pot-maker and the buyer are all the same.
And then he realised what we tend to ignore: "Khak-e-pidram dar kaf-e-kuza gari". [My father’s dust was in the hand of the potter.]
Hafez concluded his search, calling out: “Shukr aan ra kay mano Oo Suleh uftaad". [Grateful that there is now peace between Him and I].
It was the qawwali night at the Pakistan Embassy in Washington this week and the qawwals were jumping from one piece of Sufi poetry to another, without pausing to consider the inner meaning of what they were singing.
And the audience – influenced by the pulsating beats of the qawwali – did feel the pain that plunges a Sufi into this life-long search but were not yet in the right frame of mind to follow the masters.
The qawwals were good, although a bit biased, particularly against Iqbal. So they did not hesitate to make fun of his “shikwah" (complaint), saying that,
God bestowed his favors even on those who were not grateful.
The poor singer could not appreciate the depth of love that causes a lover to complain.
Iqbal, like most of the audience, was from the subcontinent where the link between God and man (or woman) is very personalised, very emotional.
And this was evident in the piece the qawwals sang from Amir Khusro’s collection, “chaap, tilak …”.
This too was a complaint, comparing the ecstasy of a lover of God with that of a woman who is so lost in love that she has no time to prepare herself for the meeting with her lover.
But this love does not end in a union. Rather, togetherness increases it because the ultimate union is not possible before the final annihilation.
So, the search continues. As it did for the masters too, causing Rumi to demand:
“Show your face as the flowers and gardens I desire. Open your lips as plenty of sweetness I desire. O the sun of beauty; come out from behind the clouds for a moment. Once again a glimpse of that radiant face I desire. By God without you, this city suffocates me. A wandering lust, mountains and wilderness I desire.”
Rumi saw an old man circling the city with a lamp in one hand and the staff in another. He asked the Sheikh what he was doing.
The Sheikh said: “Tired of deceits and traps, a pure man I desire. My lazy companions repulse my heart. Men like Sher-e-Khuda and Rustam I desire.”
Rumi told him, “You cannot find what you look for.” The Sheikh said: “What I cannot find is what I desire.”
Like all of them, Khusro too had an audience and shared it with others.
“I do not know what place it was where I was last night. The dance, the ecstasy, the pain and the ultimate surrender, I remember. I also remember the presence of the divine, beyond that I know nothing.”
This further increased his thirst:
“I wondered around the globe and saw many beautiful faces but you, my love, are different. Now, all I desire is that I become you and you become me. I become the body and you the soul. So that nobody says we are separate.”
And Lal Shahbaz Qalandar abandoned the fear of all others except the one he loved and declared: Sar-e-bazaar me raqsam:
"I do not know why I begin to dance when I see you, but I do. This is the dance of fire, in this you burn to ashes. That’s why I have rubbed ashes on myself and dance in ecstasy, yes, I do. My drunkenness is better than the piousness of those considered holy. That’s why I am here to dance, yes, I am.”
As the qawwali ended, I walked out of the hall with a heavy heart.
I knew I did not deserve what I desire and yet, I desire it.